For the last ten years, Phyllis Beam says the noise from a nearby metal recycling plant has just been getting worse.

“We’ve lost our backyard,” Beam said. “We would have a hard time selling our house, and we’ve been here 15 years.”

Beam and her neighbors live in Loxley near Ecovery, a metal recycling and processing plant. She says that what started out as an electronics recycling plant has become a massive metal smelting operation that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. The noise is constant, she says, and if the wind shifts, she deals with smoke and odor from the plant.

Now, a proposed $19.6 million expansion of the plant—spurred in part by the arrival of Novelis in Baldwin County—has drawn fierce opposition from Beam and other neighbors in the area.

Earlier this month, the Baldwin County Planning and Zoning Commission tabled consideration of a site plan for a 28,560 square foot addition to the plant, after residents of the area complained. Ecovery officials said at the meeting the new addition will be a sorting center that separates ground up metal into copper, aluminum, brass, etc.